Do you eat just bread in the evening? She grimaces. Do you listen Guns N'Roses that loud in the evening? I turn it around. I have to, Duff's guitar inspires me, I write for that new band, it has been on radio too. I nod, go out to buy some food, they are the last money. I'm working day shift at the harbour, she doesn't know I got fired from the factory. I come back,the music can be heard from the street. She is still on her laptop, with headphones on. Can't you turn the volume down? I am almost there, the song will be super cool. And we need money, don't we? She turns her wheelchair towards me. She smiles.
Costică Tihan
The hotel room was haunted by eclectically photographed dreams and ghosts in motion. Suddenly, I felt a claw in my heart. Margarita had left me for Johnnie Walker, and Stella Artois was about to leave too. The bed was spinning clockwise, but the walls weren't remaining still either. Dusty sounds of westerns and spaghetti western soundtracks, Mexican mariachi themes, vintage surf, cool jazz and a large spectrum of Latin influences and traces of western influences were echoing in my ears. I got drunk really bad.
Andra Toropoc
made of beatings. The first ones were the slaps when I was born, I hiccupped and I smiled to the world. I was young, I would punch the door of the room where my mother lay, later I threw lumps of dirt, they still bang in my dreams. My grandmother took me, then a lady who kept knocking[1] at my soul telling me I was orphan. I ran after many painful beatings and ended up at the train station where I met the boy who had African drums. He taught me to play the drums and to smile again to the world, cause' the offered pennies knock with hope in my cap.
[1]The idea here is that of constant reminding of the pain of losing his mother. I kept the idea of beating from the beginning. Knock is not used here necessarily with a literal meaning, but rather with a metaphorical one. We can see the transition to something more abstract (from physical pain to emotional pain).
(Translated by Irina Vild / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.